Chapter 67: Sacred Affinities

Caelus stepped through the entrance of the mansion and found himself facing a wide lounge. Everything was carved of black stone, its polished surfaces broken by restrained gold accents. Rows of maids stood along either side of the room in perfect straight lines, their posture so rigid that they looked less like servants and more like another part of the mansion’s decoration.

One of them stepped forward, bowed deeply, and lowered her gaze.

"We greet the young master."

"Raise your head."

The maid obeyed, though the moment her eyes met his, they dropped again almost immediately. Caelus noticed the same unease moving through the others behind her. A few kept their hands clasped so tightly that their knuckles had gone pale.

What a great first impression.

The woman regained her composure first.

"I am Raine, the head maid. I shall escort you through the mansion and explain the arrangements. Several attendants assigned to the young master are also standing by should you require anything."

Caelus was about to answer when Mira stepped forward with a pleasant smile.

"There is no need for that."

Raine hesitated. Her eyes shifted toward Caelus, waiting for a decision. He gave a small nod.

The head maid bowed again, and Mira turned toward the staircase. Caelus followed, though he could feel several pairs of eyes remaining fixed on his back until they were out of sight.

"What was that about?" he asked.

Mira turned and blinked at him twice.

"I’m your personal maid, young master. I’m responsible for everything concerning you."

She smiled as though that settled the matter, then continued up the stairs.

"I’ll escort you to the bedroom first."

Caelus frowned.

"The bedroom?"

"You need to rest, don’t you?" Mira’s smile crumbled. "The Head Healer said—"

"I heard him very well, Mira. Take me to the office instead."

"But—"

"Mira."

Her protest died immediately.

Caelus sighed and added, "Don’t worry. I promise you won’t have to bury me before you’re thirty."

Mira stared at him.

He couldn’t meet her eyes.

"Probably."

The silence that followed lasted several steps. When Caelus finally glanced at her, she was blinking rapidly and trying very hard to keep her expression under control.

She muttered something about how this was going to leave a terrible mark on her career.

Caelus paid no attention to it and kept walking.

The office occupied the second floor at the far end of the residence. Fine glyphs had been engraved around the frame, and when Caelus approached, the markings flickered in recognition of his mana before the door unlocked itself.

Inside, the room was spacious without being excessive. A broad desk of dark wood occupied the center, paired with a high-backed chair and two reception sofas positioned in front of it.

Beyond the desk, an entire wall had been replaced with floor-to-ceiling glass, giving him an unobstructed view of the Academy spread across the grounds below.

It was the first time he’d seen the Academy from this height.

Caelus took a few steps toward the desk, his body protesting before he reached it. His balance slipped, forcing him to catch himself against the edge.

Mira immediately moved forward.

"I’m fine."

He steadied himself and lowered into the chair.

Two books had already been placed neatly on the desk.

One was the academy’s rule book. The other was a book containing the academy’s common courses and information about the specialized classes offered by each department.

Caelus ignored both.

He had spent years designing this place on paper. The Academy arc had been one of the most important sections of his novel, and he had mapped everything in enough detail that reading an introductory guide now would have been little more than revisiting his own notes.

He looked toward Mira.

"Give me a rundown of what happened while I was unconscious."

Mira’s expression became more serious.

"After the examination ended, the number of survivors and casualties was announced. The reaction was severe. There was considerable anger over the death toll, but the Headmaster addressed the parents personally and managed to calm the situation."

She folded her hands in front of her.

"The rankings have already been announced to the examination participants. They have not been released to the public yet, though Academy staff and people with sufficient status have access to the results privately."

She paused.

"Your Apex title recognition ceremony is tomorrow."

Caelus leaned back slightly.

The Academy had always made a grand spectacle of its highest-ranked students. Status mattered here, and the Apex title was too valuable to leave as nothing more than a number on a board.

Mira continued.

"As for the residence, everything has already been prepared. There are training rooms, mana chambers, sparring golems, practice dummies, and a fully equipped laboratory. Your materials have also been brought here and unpacked."

She gestured toward the desk.

"Your glasses and personal materials are in the drawer."

Caelus glanced at it but didn’t open it yet.

"Anything from the family?"

"You were sent one thousand gold coins for the month."

Caelus almost whistled.

Mira’s tone remained formal.

"The Patriarch also said that you may request information from the Vespera archive, provided the request is considered reasonable and you maintain your current position as rank one."

Caelus’s expression remained still.

"If you lose it for even a single semester, the family will retrieve you."

She hesitated before finishing.

"You will also be stripped of the Vespera name."

That earned a brief pause.

"And the others?"

"The Vespera candidates who failed the family’s requirement have already been taken back. Their names have been removed from the family records, and they were banished."

Caelus nodded.

Still, a part of him wanted to see Toren’s expression when the family came for him. He almost wished he could have been there when the spear-wielding scum learned that Rank Three was worth nothing to House Vespera.

He never got the chance.

Oh well.

Everything else was within the range of what he’d expected.

"You can excuse yourself now."

Mira bowed deeply.

"Yes, young master."

The door closed behind her.

For the first time since entering the residence, Caelus was alone.

He leaned forward and opened the desk drawer. His glasses were exactly where Mira said they would be. He put the glasses on, pulled one of the notebooks out of his storage ring, and opened to the last page he’d filled before the examination.

Near the top was a simple list.

Entrance Exam.

He drew a line through it, then added a mark beside the entry.

Caelus rested the pen against the page for a moment.

The entrance exam was over, but that only marked the beginning of the part of the story where things became dangerous.

The Academy had always been the point where the larger conflicts began moving into place.

Contractors were already somewhere inside its walls, along with people who would eventually become their candidates. Caelus had several ideas about who they might be based on what he had written, but relying on that knowledge blindly would be careless now.

Too many things had already changed.

Leon had never existed in the original story. Eve had interacted with Veyra far earlier than she should have. The examination itself had diverged, and the number of survivors was already twenty-five lower than the version he’d written.

His manuscript remained useful, but it simply wasn’t law anymore.

Caelus turned the page and began writing.

His first priority was obvious.

Survive the Academy without becoming complacent.

He stared at the words for a moment before adding beneath them.

The Academy would be more dangerous now that he had become the Apex. More eyes would follow him, more people would test him, and the position itself would make it harder to disappear when he needed to.

His pen moved again.

Then there were the Contractors.

He had to prevent them from taking the Sacred Affinity holders.

Ordinary humans who consumed excessive Corrupt Mana without forming a contract with a Corrupt being could suffer catastrophic circuit damage. In severe cases, the circuits simply burned out beneath the strain, as they had nearly done to him after the examination.

Sacred Affinity holders were different.

Their souls and circuits could adapt to corruption, allowing the power to settle into them instead of destroying them outright.

That adaptation was precisely what made them useful.

A corrupted Sacred holder could become a medium capable of accelerating the Corrupt King’s descent.

Caelus’s pen slowed.

Lucian was an exception in one crucial respect.

Sacred Light could purge corruption, and his affinity gave him a natural advantage against it. The other holders would have to rely far more heavily on their own understanding, control, and ability to resist.

Veyra was one of them.

Caelus wasn’t particularly worried about Veyra.

The other holders were another matter entirely.

Some of them didn’t even know what they carried.

He needed to identify each one, watch for the signs of corruption if it had already begun, and intervene before the Contractors could reach them.

The Corrupt King could not be allowed to descend.

If that happened, every plan he had made would become irrelevant.

Caelus turned another page.

He couldn’t neglect his own strength either.

His current spell arsenal was useful, but it was still too narrow for what was coming. He also needed to understand "the Eclipse" properly, especially after the chamber and the Ring had already deviated from what he remembered.

Then the Goddess was another issue.

She had looked at him and spoken as though she knew something he didn’t.

They want you dead.

The statement remained lodged in his memory.

His pen hovered over the page.

And finally, there was Lucian.

The Hero had to develop faster than he had in the original timeline. Caelus needed him strong enough before the conflicts became impossible to contain.

He wrote that down as well.

His gaze remained on the words for a few moments before moving lower on the page.

Then came the one subject he had been deliberately leaving until the end.

His sister.

He still didn’t know why Sara had killed him.

He had spent enough time wondering whether there had been a reason beyond what he remembered, but every answer led to another unanswered question. Lately, he had begun to suspect that her actions were connected to everything else.

The thought was too vague to prove but too dangerous to ignore.

Caelus closed his eyes for a moment, then pushed it aside.

He could investigate it later.

Right now, he had work to do.

He turned to a fresh page and began writing.

New changes. New anomalies. Relevant divergences.

The pen moved steadily as he recorded everything he could remember from the examination, marking the points where events had deviated from the manuscript and those that might have consequences later.

By the time he reached the bottom of the page, the light outside had begun to fade.

He was still writing when the office door opened.

Caelus looked up.

Mira stood there.

"The Headmaster is calling for you, young master."

Caelus set the pen down.

About time.